Dragons of Legends Impact – Richmond Meta

With Circuit Series Richmond coming up this weekend, players are trying their best to find what the best deck to take to the event will be, including me! Today I want to talk about some of the decks that will see a good amount of play at Richmond that will take advantage and utilize of some of the great cards that come out of Dragons of Legend this Friday.

Mythic/Bandit Rulers

This deck is probably going to be the most played deck at the ARGCS this weekend, as it can use Soul Charge and Kuribandit to their full potential. Before the Dragons of Legends cards were announced players were hesitant to run this deck in a 9+ round event because the deck had consistency issues and tended to brick on draws a little too much. Kuribandit helps solve a lot of issues the deck had before, being able to grab key spells and traps from the deck and dumping Dragon Rulers or fodder to remove for them. Another great thing about this card is unlike [ccProd]Cardcar D[/ccProd], you can still special summon the turn you use its effect. So you can go and make whatever plays you want and summon this guy afterwards to reload your graveyard with Dragons. Kuribandit is also key games 2 and 3 as cards like [ccProd]Soul Drain[/ccProd] and [ccProd]Imperial Iron Wall[/ccProd] cut you off from all of your plays, so digging for S/T removal with Bandit alongside all of your usual draw cards is really good, being able to hit Burial more often is another good factor since that card is game breaking when it resolves.

A huge reason this deck will be highly played is because of the generic [ccProd]Rekindling[/ccProd] called Soul Charge that comes along with Kuribandit. This card is obvious going to be played in just about every deck but Dragon decks can use this card to pump out some crazy fields that rival the power that [ccProd]Return from the Different Dimension[/ccProd] gave to Dragons! Opening up with Soul Charge + [ccProd]Dragon Shrine[/ccProd] is an automatic level 8 Synchro or Azure Eyes if you run the Blue-Eyes engine in the deck. Soul Charge makes it so you can get multiple uses out your Dragon Rulers in one turn, making it almost feel like you have multiple copies of each Dragon again. The deck can run out of dragons to banish pretty fast, Soul Charge helps a lot with that issue. The drawback of not being able to enter your battle phase can be mitigated through cards like [ccProd]Mecha Phantom Beast Dracossack[/ccProd], [ccProd]Number 11 Big Eye[/ccProd] or just putting up powerful cards like Felgrand. Setting up a board turn 1 backed up by a [ccProd]Skill Drain[/ccProd] or [ccProd]Vanity’s Emptiness[/ccProd] can pretty much seal the deal most of the time. This deck will be a powerful contender going into the event, make sure you prepare properly for them!

Mermails

Though this deck can’t really take advantage of Kuribandit or many other cards in the set, Soul Charge alone helps this deck out enough to make up for it . Mermails are one of the most aggressive decks in the game today, being able to spit out some outrageous fields opening turn through use of cards like Hilde, [ccProd]Aqua Spirit[/ccProd], [ccProd]Mermail Abyssteus[/ccProd], etc. Using Soul Charge makes it so you have endless possibilities on what you can do with your turns, having cards like [ccProd]Mermail Abyssocea[/ccProd] , Abyssteus, Aqua Spirit and Soul Charge means you can have some insane fields, I once ended my field with [ccProd]Mermail Abyssgaios[/ccProd], [ccProd]Mechquipped Angineer[/ccProd], [ccProd]Bahamut Shark[/ccProd], and [ccProd]Mermail Abysstrite[/ccProd] turn 1! Using that spell makes it so you can make Abyssgaios even easier than before, and that card alone can end the game a lot of the time. Soul Charge is also great if you bring back [ccProd]Mermail Abysspike[/ccProd] or [ccProd]Mermail Abyssturge[/ccProd], since the lifepoint loss occurs at the same time as they come out they won’t miss timing so you can use their effects. Another great thing about the card is that it allows you to play under a [ccProd]Dimensional Fissure[/ccProd] or Soul Drain if you already have some monsters in your graveyard, now you can at least have a fighting chance if you can’t seem to find a way to get your opponent’s floodgate card off the board. You be sure to see a good amount of this deck going into ACS Richmond.

Hieratic Rulers

This is another deck which can’t really incorporate Kuribandit into the deck but can make great use of Soul Charge. Soul Charge + Dragon Shrine alone turns into [ccProd]Hieratic Dragon King of Atum[/ccProd] and if you also a Dragon Ruler you can put a Dracossack alongside it, a powerful opening that only uses 3 cards! One of the decks major weaknesses was getting your combos disrupted by cards like [ccProd]Black Horn of Heaven[/ccProd] or [ccProd]Torrential Tribute[/ccProd] and sometimes it would be hard to recover from that, with Soul Charge you can bring back whatever piece you are missing. It will be hard to stop them if they have 3 Hieratics and a Soul Charge in their hand. With Soul Charge you can also go off and if you find that you need to lock your opponent down depending on what they are playing, you can end with a [ccProd]Photon Strike Bounzer[/ccProd]. This deck can also support Vanity’s Emptiness as well since it can put up a threatening board early on just like Mythic Rulers. Unlike Mythic Ruler’s this deck can support [ccProd]A Wingbeat of Giant Dragon[/ccProd] as we all know, using Wingbeat then going off and following it up with Soul Charge can be pretty hard to come back from. This deck will also be a top runner along with Mythic Rulers.

Probably one of the biggest cards going into the event besides the new Dragon of Legends cards will be Vanity’s Emptiness. With Mermails, Hieratics, and Dragon Rulers at the front this card will be ran in just about every deck at the Circuit Series. Those 3 decks have a very hard time dealing with Emptiness as those decks don’t really have anything they can summon without special to get over opposing monsters. Sometimes setting a [ccProd]Debris Dragon[/ccProd] or [ccProd]Flamvell Guard[/ccProd] can be the only thing you can do when Emptiness is face up. Decks like Bujins and Evilswarm can easily support Emptiness since they summon monsters with built-in protection so they can easily ride one or two monsters to victory. I would strongly recommend that player’s include at least one or 2 copies in their main or side decks. I myself have this card in every deck I have built right now on Dueling Network. Make sure that you prepare adequately, I really hate watching a match and seeing people being put from 8000 to 0 from a single monster because of this card.

ACS Richmond will be sure to be an exciting event with Dragons of Legends getting released that Friday, I’m sure players, including myself, will be scrambling to get cards for the event! Many people I know are constantly testing on DN trying to perfect their decks with all the new cards. I can’t wait to see what cool and unique decks will be played at the event, if it’s good enough it might even sweep the tournament! Let me know in the comments below if you guys have any cool ideas or decks that you think are underrated and will do well this weekend! Click the picture below for all the details for ARGCS Richmond this weekend! April 26-27!

Discussion

Yes definitely Vanity’s Emptiness will be a staple since the release of Dragon of Legends….Soul Charge and Kuribandit will be the most played cards from that set…..also look out for Shadow Impulse which may see some play. I think it will come down to the duelist which sets up the best first. Yes Soul Charge is good and all but I believe the mere fact that you gave your opponent a turn to do whatever he wants to you…it may be detrimental due to the fact that the meta decks have so many powerful plays! Dragon of Legends will surely change the course of this format…it is an awesome opening to the upcoming Primal Origins which will definitely switch this format into a different direction!